Puzzle Pieces
by Bryn Elizabeth
Summary: After the proposal and the rejection, Logan thinks about big and little puzzle pieces. Rory wants to tell him about her new job, because they always celebrated and grieved with each other. They both miss the life they built together. You can't just shut off you love for someone. They are worth the work it will take. This is what I always imagined happened after season 7 ended.


**A/N: This has always been what happened after the season seven finale in my head.**

* * *

He doesn't regret the ultimatum, he tells himself. He wanted _all_ of Rory, not the little pieces he could get over the phone or on the weekends when he can fly back to Connecticut or New York or wherever she was going to be. He couldn't really blame her, though, not for her grand ambitions and the feeling that she could do anything she wanted to do. He wanted her to do what she wanted to do. He just wanted to be with her when she did it.

They were supposed to factor each other in, to these big life-altering decisions. _You jump, I jump, Jack_. He _did_ factor her in. He factored her in when he picked out the house with the avocado tree, when he looked into the papers in San Francisco, when he picked out an engagement ring. He factored her into the perfect set of puzzle pieces.

It's after two days of trying to distract himself by packing up his apartment instead of wallowing that he realizes that the pain in his chest isn't some kind of dull, throbbing ache like he expected. It _hurts_. He knew it would, but this stings so that he's afraid it's going to paralyze him. This stings like he shouldn't have done this to himself.

Because he's packing a box of books and one falls open to reveal the words "Property of Rory Gilmore" and he wonders if he should mail it to her, and then he finds a shirt of hers, and then he finds a shirt of his that she liked to wear, and her favorite coffee mug, and her favorite brand of coffee, and he thinks that if the house with the avocado tree and the _San Francisco Chronicle_ are puzzle pieces, so are these- puzzle pieces that fit in perfectly with all of his puzzle pieces.

And without them, he is incomplete.

It sounds so ridiculous and cliché and sappy and dorky, the kind of thing he would have laughed at only a few years ago. But looking at all of the ways that Rory Gilmore fit into his life, he realizes that there are pieces he just can't give up.

Not yet. Not now. Probably not ever.

But what can he do? He can't call her, can't go see her.

It isn't that she wouldn't marry him; her reasons were valid. It's that she walked away completely, and it was his fault. She might not take him back.

* * *

It all happened so fast, too fast, the proposal and the graduating and the break-up and the job.

The summer was supposed to be a perfect, final farewell, to her mom, to her grandparents, to Luke, to Stars Hollow, to Logan.

Actually, it was never supposed to be a farewell to Logan.

Not a final one anyway- more like time to soak up each other before they went wherever they were going until the next time that he appeared on the roof of her building or she could afford a plane ticket to go to him.

But graduation now carried more sadness than happiness.

She only cried at night, quietly, curled up in her childhood bed, where her mother wouldn't know. Her mother, who never liked Logan, because she only saw her old world in him. Her mother, who didn't want her to get married, because she wanted Rory to _do_ things. Rory knew that this break up would hurt, no matter how many times she told herself this was the right decision, the right choice. She loved Logan, had loved Logan for a long time. She didn't just stop loving him because she didn't want to marry him. But no Logan was better than having to be chained to one place- to California- right?

Every time she found something of his in her things, or picked up her phone to text him something Taylor had said (because she knew how much the man amused him) she wasn't so sure.

* * *

She couldn't help it, when she got the job. She had been telling Logan _everything_ for three years, celebrating every victory and grieving every tragedy with him for three years. He was the only one she wanted to tell when she got the job.

And since she dumped him to have a career, it was only fair to tell him that she did in fact have one, right?

Hands shaking, she dialed, unsurprised when he didn't pick up. She took a deep, shaky breath waiting for the beep, realizing she had nothing rehearsed- Rory Gilmore, who thought out everything she did with painstaking detail, had never had to rehearse anything she was going to say to Logan Huntzberger.

 _Beep._

"Hi, Logan. I know that you probably don't want to hear from me, and I get it. But you were the one person I really wanted to tell. I, um. I got a job. I'm going on the campaign trail as a reporter with Senator Barack Obama. I'm going to be on the bus and the plane and all over the country. I leave in three days, so I'm going a little crazy. But… I don't know, you were always the one I told things, the one who celebrated with me. And I know that I gave that up, but I miss it already. So much. I miss _you_. I've gone to text you a hundred times because we've had this life together for so long and I… I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She knew her tears were evident in her voice. "I just wanted you to know, Logan. Bye."

* * *

The voicemail gives him hope.

She didn't say she regretted her choice or that she wanted him back, but at least she missed him. Missed their life, like he did.

Maybe she would still be willing to let him be a puzzle piece.

* * *

She almost didn't believe her caller ID.

"Logan?"

"Hi, Ace." His voice was tense, tight. "I got your voicemail."

"Oh." She paused. "I didn't think you would call me back."

"I've been waiting for a reason to call you."

"Really? After what I did?"

"After what _we_ did." He took a breath. "Congratulations on the job, by the way. That's amazing! I can't think of anyone who deserves it more."

"Thanks!" He could hear her smile. "It's exciting, it's just… so soon."

"Yeah, three days?"

"Two now."

"How's your mom taking it?" He leaned against the kitchen counter, the familiar ease of their conversation both painful and hopeful.

"Not great. We were supposed to have this whole summer."

"Yeah."

"Do you miss me?" she blurted suddenly.

"Of course, Rory. I wanted to _marry_ you."

"Right. Sorry." She took a shaky breath. "So."

"I'm sorry."

"For what? Oh. Sorry that you're going to tell me to never call you again? Don't be."

"No. No." He sighed. "Sorry that I gave you the ultimatum. That wasn't fair."

"Oh? I mean, I get it. I'm sorry that I embarrassed you in front of all of those people at my party, by not saying yes. I never apologized for that. And… I am sorry that I had to say no."

"You should get to have a life," he continued. "I'm sorry that I just tried to fit you as a piece into mine."

"We said we would factor each other in. You did."

"No, I factored you in the way I wanted you to fit."

"Logan, you factored me in to the life you wanted with me. To live together again, to be together forever. I just couldn't because-"

"You don't have to say it again," he interrupted.

"Oh. Okay." She was silent for a moment. "I don't not want that life with you, you know."

"I know."

"You do? Then why- never mind."

"Then why did I walk away?"

"I know why."

"Because I'm an idiot?"

"No! Logan, that's not what-"

"But I am."

"What?"

"Yeah, Rory, I want to marry you, and I want you to come to California with me, and be there every morning when I wake up and when I go to bed, but… well, I thought that I couldn't live with just pieces of you, but it's only been two days and I'm pretty sure I can't live without any piece of you at all."

"Oh. I don't like living without you either."

"Really?"

* * *

He was at her first campaign stop, as promised, telling her that he had too many things to say to her that would be better in person, even if they spent four days texting and chatting about what she should pack and what she should wear and that there was a crying baby in the airport waiting area because of course.

She still wasn't sure exactly what he wanted from her, but she couldn't stop herself from running into his arms and holding onto him for dear life.

* * *

"Can we at least compromise?" he asked, pulling something out of his pocket. "Will you wear the ring and call me your fiancé, even if only to make sure that none of the other reporters get any ideas about knocking on your hotel room door?" He put his hand over hers. "We don't have to start planning a wedding, or put an announcement in the paper or anything. Just… let it mean forever, someday."

She grinned, taking his face in her hands. "Yes."


End file.
